If the club culture experts are to be believed, some dance music genres are on the way out and clubbers are hunting for the latest beat-heavy hype. It is a scenario with which DJ Aphrodite is well familiar. The music that he has been pushing, drum-and-bass, allegedly has been on the decline for the past year. Aphrodite, whose real name is Gavin King, was in Hong Kong last week to spin at promoter Cloud 9's event at Hardy's II. King is behind such dance floor favourites as King Of The Beats and Woman That Rolls. He believes that his presence is enough to indicate that drum-and-bass is as strong as it ever has been. He feels that the opinions are poorly based, especially those expressed by the British media. 'Every year, normally around March, drum-and-bass dies. I think half of those media people never actually go out themselves and have fun. They sit down and think, 'what should we write about this week? Drum-and-bass, anything new? No? It's dead then',' King says. 'The whole scene has developed into something more than just a collection of drum-and-bass tunes, it's a whole collection of different styles.' King, who recently released his debut full-length album, a self-titled collection of previously released singles and new material, is impressed by the present variety of sounds within the drum-and-bass industry. His particular style - 'Jump Up' - caters to the dance floor, he says. 'People jump up and dance. If people sat down and mooched around then maybe they'd call that music Sit Down,' he says. 'If you like melodic, exciting music with a bit of power and a bit of beef, then you'll love what I do. I tend to represent the more tuneful side, the more 'danceable' side of drum-and-bass. I'm not into being interesting and I'm not interested in being artistic. 'What I make is generally for the crowd in front of me. My ideal set is one that I have in my head but don't have the time to make.' As drum-and-bass has begun to show signs of commercial viability, purists have complained that taking the underground over-ground will taint the genre. But King pays little heed to drum-and-bass fundamentalists, arguing that variety is what the industry needs. Adamantly opposed to being 'arty-farty' and self-indulgent, King believes that all a good drum-and-bass track needs is a 'kicking bass-line that gets down to your feet'. With roots in club promotion - he takes his moniker from his first club - King can attribute his success to his ability to keep clubbers happy. He comes from a diverse musical background, having been influenced by the early days of acid, hip-house and hip-hop. He started throwing parties and DJing in the late 1980s, shortly after house exploded on to the British music scene and spawned 1988's infamous Summer Of Love. By the early 90s he was dabbling in production and by 1993 was heavily into the burgeoning drum-and-bass scene. 'You can't have a really happy tune without having a really dark tune, you can't have a deep tune without an uplifting tune. If all the records were dark or if all the records were cheesy, then it would be really boring. 'You have to play a record for the deep dark posse over there and then one for the girls dancing around their handbags, otherwise you're not going to have a good varied crowd.' Much of the acclaim for King has come from his re-mix work. He has been collaborating with Mickey Finn since the early 1990s, and they established the Urban Takeover label in 1996. They have become two of the most sought-after drum-and-bass re-mixers. King has put his own spin on tracks by such acts as British pop outfit East 17 and hip-hoppers Jungle Brothers, and was particularly successful with a version of rapper Luniz's I Got Five On It. Unperturbed by charges that commercial success has diluted the music, King is, however, frustrated by certain claims that sampling is devoid of creativity. The former school orchestra leader is also dismissive of criticisms that he lacks musicianship. 'Some artists say sampling is the easy way out . . . What is the difference between sampling a drum sound, or sampling someone saying 'hey' on a record?' he asks. 'Well one major difference is that you have to pay royalties on that one. But even when you buy a keyboard, you're playing samples.' In between King's hectic DJing schedule, which has taken him around the world, running the Aphrodite Recordings label and re-mixing, he is also working on an album of new material, due for release next summer. He is also dabbling in some new sounds, recently making an acid-jungle track and experimenting with samples from Bruce Lee action films. And even though King is growing in popular and critical acclaim, he still finds that his moniker, which is the name of Greek mythology's goddess of love and beauty, lands him in some 'weird and interesting situations'.
